- NYC: Grocers sue over Mamdani’s communist grocery plan
Source: United Press International
“A group of grocers filed two lawsuits Monday over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to open five city-run grocery stores, saying it would harm neighborhood supermarkets. The Multicultural Business Coalition, an organization that says it represents owners of smaller stores, said in the filings that the city would violate business owners’ civil rights if the new stores open and that officials did not study how the planned stores would affect existing businesses. … The plan for city-owned grocery stores, which would sell some items at a 30% discount, was part of Mamdani’s platform as he ran for mayor. It calls for five stores, one in each borough of New York City, to open by 2029.” (08/24/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/08/24/group-sues-over-NYC-grocery-plan/3061787598336/
- Lawmakers, Groups Demand Rubio Secure Release of Sama Safi From Israeli Detention
Source: Common Dreams
“Dozens of US lawmakers came together on Tuesday to demand the immediate release of Sama Safi, a 20-year-old American psychology student with ‘a severe complex chronic health condition’ who was ‘arbitrarily and wrongfully detained’ by the Israeli military nearly three months ago. Safi was abducted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on June 2 as ‘part of a series of raids targeting Birzeit University students that morning that wrongfully detained three other young women: Natalie Abu Diah, Leila Khalil, and Joulan Abu Awad,’ the members of Congress wrote to President Donald Trump’s top diplomat. ‘This targeting of Palestinian students is not an isolated incident but part of what United Nations human rights experts have called a systematic policy to ‘undermine the right to education’.'” (08/25/26)
- Haiti: Gangs kill at least 47 people in attack near capital
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“At least 47 people were killed and 22 more injured in an overnight gang raid on a neighborhood overlooking Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, the UN said on Monday, prompting anger over the lack of protection from repeated deadly attacks. The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti said estimates could still change. The hillside community of Kenscoff, in a strategic position overlooking routes into the capital, has suffered a dozen attacks by armed gangs since last year, forcing thousands to flee their homes.” (08/25/26)
- FBI sets $25,000 minimum reward for dozens of unsolved Indian Country cases
Source: SFGate
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has established a minimum reward of $25,000 in cases where people went missing or were killed in Indian Country, part of a broader effort to address high rates of violence affecting Native American communities. The new minimum applies to more than 50 unsolved homicides and missing-person cases in tribal communities. Most of the cases are less than 10 years old, though a dozen have been unsolved for more than two decades, an AP analysis found. Victims’ families and experts are unsure the higher amounts will be enough to get tipsters to come forward, citing people’s fears and distrust of the federal government. … The FBI investigates federal crimes on nearly 200 Native American reservations, along with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.” (08/25/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/fbi-sets-25-000-minimum-reward-for-dozens-of-22402115.php
- Block Bits Founder Guilty After $960k Crypto Bot Pitch Implodes
Source: Bitcoin.com
“A federal jury convicted Block Bits co-founder Japheth Dillman on five fraud-related counts after prosecutors showed how nearly $1 million flowed from investors into a cryptocurrency trading operation built around an automated system that never existed. … Dillman and co-founder David Mata pulled in about $960,000 from roughly 22 retail investors between June 2017 and August 2018. The sales pitch was specific: Block Bits Fund I supposedly ran a proprietary bot trading about 100 digital assets across more than 30 exchanges and harvesting price differences between them. That machine was the heart of the pitch, and prosecutors said it simply was not there. The SEC alleged Block Bits’ actual trading amounted to Mata manually placing trades through an exchange account.” (08/24/26)
- Russia: Regime to seize poorly protected infrastructure amid Ukraine drone attacks
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree opening the way for the Russian state to take temporary control of critical infrastructure found to be inadequately protected from attack. The decree, published on Monday, would allow Moscow to strip owners of physical and financial control over facilities should it be determined that they are failing to secure them or repair damage quickly. The move comes as Ukraine maintains an intense drone campaign against Russian infrastructure. … Fuel and energy facilities, including nuclear power, are included under the legislation as well as industry, communications, transport and logistics, public utilities and other facilities deemed essential to state security and economic stability.” (08/24/26)
- SCOTUS rules blue states sued too early over Trump’s postal election rigging scheme
Source: The Hill
“The Supreme Court lifted a judge’s block on President Trump’s executive order adding to mail voting requirements, removing a key roadblock that prevented the policy from going into effect for the midterms. Over the public dissents of the three liberal justices, the high court said Monday that the judge had no authority to block Trump’s directive ahead of the U.S. Postal Service implementing the new ballot standards. ‘Federal courts review final rules, not proposed rules—and certainly not antecedent internal directives to propose a rule. If the Postal Service’s final rule harms the States, they may challenge that rule,’ the court wrote. It allows Trump to move closer to implementing his mail ballot restrictions for November’s contests. But now that the Postal Service announced its final regulation late last week, the states had already begun their new push to block it.” (08/24/26)
- Judge postpones trial for man charged in Lockerbie bombing over “new evidence”
Source: AOL
“The US trial of a former Libyan intelligence operative accused over the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing has been delayed after fresh evidence came to light, a federal judge ruled on Monday. Defence attorneys requested time to review the material in the case, which spans nearly four decades. Jury selection was due to start on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., for Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, in what will be the first trial held in the US regarding the attack on 21 December 1988. An order issued by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich did not elaborate on the nature of the newly revealed details. … Al-Marimi is charged in the US with building the bomb that destroyed the aircraft, killing 270 people, mostly Americans.” (08/25/26)
https://www.aol.com/articles/judge-postpones-trial-man-charged-055831000.html
- UK: Iran-linked hackers suspected in power plant shutdown
Source: Fox News
“Iran-linked hackers are suspected of forcing a small British power generator offline for four days last month, the latest sign that Tehran-linked cyber activity may be moving from probing vulnerable systems to causing disruptions U.S. officials have long warned about. Iran-linked hackers were behind the outage, according to British security officials who spoke with multiple news outlets. … The British shutdown came weeks after hackers struck more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota, accessing technology used to remotely monitor and control pumps and other equipment. Minnesota officials have not publicly attributed the attacks. Several news outlets, citing U.S. officials and a leaked industry threat-sharing memo, reported that Iran was the likely culprit.” (08/24/26)
- MA: Lindsay Clancy trial judge denies mistrial request, but reprimands prosecution over witness testimony about religion
Source: CBS News
“Lindsay Clancy trial testimony ended abruptly Monday in Plymouth Superior Court when a witness began speaking about Catholic religion and the defense called for a mistrial. Judge William Sullivan denied the mistrial request, but reprimanded the prosecution and sent jurors home for the day. Dr. Kirk Heilbrun was the second witness of the day, and in the afternoon he spoke about a conversation he had with Clancy in April. ‘That was part of her expectation was that she and her children would be together in heaven with God.’ … Sullivan then sent jurors out of the room, and there was a brief recess. When Sullivan and the attorneys returned, the defense called for a mistrial. … When the jury was called back in, the judge told jurors the remarks were ‘immaterial, irrelevant and to be disregarded.'” [editor’s note: If Clancy’s “state of mind” was relevant to the testimony, why would reference to religious conversation be “immaterial?” – TLK] (08/24/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/lindsay-clancy-trial-watch-live-day-19-rebuttal/
- US regime publicly confesses to two more maritime murders
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“US forces have struck another vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, [murdering] two people accused of trafficking drugs, the US military said on Monday, in the first attack announced in about two months. The death toll in the nearly year-long US campaign of bombing boats allegedly trafficking drugs now exceeds 210 after more than 60 strikes off Latin America’s Caribbean coast and in the eastern Pacific Ocean. … US President Donald Trump has said the US is in ‘armed conflict’ with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of [murdering] ‘narcoterrorists.'” (08/24/26)
- Bitcoin Surges On Treasury Game-Changer; Strategy Raises $2 Billion
Source: Investor’s Business Daily
“The bitcoin price continued its recent surge on Monday, touching a two-month high on news that the Treasury Department might conduct its own version of quantitative easing using its nearly $1 trillion general account. The rally got cooking with a burst of short-covering last Wednesday, when Treasury announced that it would at least double buybacks of long-term government bonds to stem a big rise in 10- and 30-year Treasury yields. … Strategy (MSTR) took advantage of last week’s favorable conditions for bitcoin and the cryptosphere to issue 18.26 million shares of MSTR stock, raising just over $2 billion in cash.” (08/24/26)
https://www.investors.com/news/bitcoin-price-bessent-treasury-general-account-strategy/
- Trump regime proposes $103,000 fee for H-1B visas after legal setback
Source: Washington Post
“The Trump administration plans to charge employers seeking skilled foreign workers through the H-1B visa program a $103,265 fee, a proposed regulation posted on Monday said. Revenue from the fee would be used to run the legal immigration system, the document said, including funding for federal immigration courts and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. President Donald Trump’s administration argues that the H-1B program has been used to take jobs away from Americans and that the current system fails to prioritize the most exceptional foreign workers. Trump tried to implement a similar $100,000 fee last year through a presidential proclamation, but it was invalidated by a federal judge in June.” (08/24/26)
- Iran: Rial currency hits new record low as US prepares to announce more sanctions
Source: SFGate
“Iran’s currency hit a record low Monday as Washington prepared to announce new sanctions it said would put more pressure on an economy already battered by previous sanctions and a U.S. naval blockade. The rial dropped to 2.02 million to the U.S. dollar as trading opened on currency markets. Iran’s official Central Bank rate stood at around 1.5 million rial to the dollar, but the market rate is what most Iranians pay. The currency had already been under pressure before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, as Iran faced double-digit inflation and negative growth. The rial has repeatedly hit new lows as nearly six months of war have taken an even greater toll. Iranians find daily staples increasingly unaffordable. Since the war began, rice is up some 60% and beef prices are more than 150% higher. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that gross domestic product will contract more than 5%.” (08/24/26)
- Mexico resumes live cattle exports to U.S. after yearlong halt
Source: United Press International
“Mexico resumed live cattle exports to the United States on Monday after a suspension of more than a year because of the New World screwworm outbreak. President Claudia Sheinbaum said during her morning news conference that exports have resumed gradually through the Agua Prieta border crossing in the northern state of Sonora. The border reopening will proceed under controlled conditions, with 700 cattle crossing daily from Agua Prieta to Douglas, Ariz. The plan calls for export volumes to increase gradually as sanitary inspections stabilize.” (08/24/26)
- Ceasefire verification mission deploys to eastern DR Congo
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“A mission to verify a fragile ceasefire between the Congolese army and Rwanda-backed AFC/M23 armed group was deployed Monday to the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as the two sides traded accusations of abuses. The eastern DRC has been riven by decades of conflict with multiple armed groups fighting over its mineral-rich territory, including the M23, which seized further swaths of the region last year. … The mechanism for verfiying ceasefire violations comprises Congolese government and AFC/M23 representatives as well as observers from member countries of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR). The mission, the first of its kind, was deployed on Monday by UN helicopters to Minembwe in South Kivu province, which has seen intense clashes in recent months, according to UN and government sources.” (08/24/26)
https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20260824-ceasefire-verification-mission-deploys-eastern-dr-congo
- US Marines Cancel Drill With South Korea, Citing Iran War Demands
Source: New York Times
“The United States has canceled a joint amphibious landing exercise with South Korean forces that was set for next month, citing resource constraints driven by the war in Iran, the South Korean military announced Monday. The U.S. Marine Corps had notified its South Korean counterpart in June that Middle East operational demands would prevent the deployment of forces for the biennial exercise known as Ssangyong, or ‘Twin Dragons,’ the South Korean Marine Corps said on Monday. The U.S. military in Korea did not immediately comment on the announcement. The move marked the second joint military drill with South Korea to be canceled or downsized during President Trump’s second term.” (08/24/26)
- NV: Firefighters trying to stop fast-moving wildfire from spreading to homes in Reno
Source: SFGate
“A wildfire that mushroomed over the weekend in the Sierra Nevada foothills spread perilously close to neighborhoods in Reno, Nevada, forcing authorities to urge more than 90,000 residents to leave their homes. The out-of-control fire has already burned some homes, but there’s concern that shifting winds could push the flames into newly developed and densely packed neighborhoods in Nevada’s largest city outside of metro Las Vegas. Schools across the county were closed Monday because of the evacuations and to keep roads clear for emergency crews. At a roadblock in one of the evacuated neighborhoods, residents expressed frustration Monday that they could not get back into their homes.” (08/24/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/firefighters-are-trying-to-stop-a-fast-moving-22401024.php
- CA: Cancels Paramount Settlement Talks Over $111 Billion Warner Bros. Discovery Deal, Says He’ll Meet When They “Stop Playing Games’”
Source: Variety
“California Attorney General Rob Bonta has canceled planned settlement talks with Paramount over the state’s lawsuit seeking to block David Ellison‘s proposed $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, accusing Paramount of acting in bad faith, according to The New York Times. Bonta is leading a coalition of 12 states in challenging the proposed merger and asking the court to block the deal, arguing the merger would give the company too much power across cable television and movie production. The two sides had been due to meet Monday for preliminary discussions for a possible settlement, but Bonta called off the meeting late Sunday, after accusing Paramount of misrepresenting details of an earlier meeting held on Friday.” (08/24/26)
- IL: Cop who murdered Sonya Massey allegedly dies in prison
Source: KRON 4 News
“Sean Grayson, the former Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy who was convicted of killing Sonya Massey, has died. Daniel Fultz, one of Grayson’s defense attorneys, confirmed with Nexstar’s WCIA that Grayson died on Sunday. Grayson, 32, was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Sonya Massey in October of 2025. Massey, a [b]lack woman, had called 911 to report she believed someone was trying to break into her home. Grayson and another deputy responded to the call at 12:50 a.m. on July 6, 2024. Massey was shot by Grayson about 30 minutes later, and was pronounced dead by 1:47 a.m. At the beginning of this year, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Recently, Grayson requested early release from prison on medical grounds. He had been battling colon cancer for years, and in July, WCIA reported the cancer had progressed to Stage 4 and spread to Grayson’s rectum, liver and lungs.” (08/24/26)
- This YouTuber Got Kicked Out of the Flock Convention. So He Ran His Own Surveillance.
Source: Reason
by Matthew Petti“The surveillance contractor Flock Safety argues that police customers don’t need a warrant to track drivers with its automated license plate reading cameras because drivers have ‘no reasonable expectation of privacy’ on public roads. So YouTube host Benn Jordan applied the same logic back on Flock. He sat outside Flock’s recent police convention in Atlanta with radio equipment and a drone, which he used to unmask attendees and even listen to microphones inside the convention hall. ‘Flock values their privacy. Oh well,’ Jordan wrote in the title of his video on the convention.” (08/24/26)
- Were the Bombs of August 1945 “Demonic”
Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson“Every August, debate renews over both the wisdom and the morality of dropping the two American atomic bombs, 81 years ago, on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). This August has been no exception. As ever, many critics have faulted the United States for the bombings: two gruesome blasts—aimed at dual-use military and industrial targets in both cities—that may have caused some 100,000–120,000 immediate deaths among combatants and civilians. And not all these critics are on the Left. Two years ago, podcaster Tucker Carlson blasted the Truman administration’s decision, alleging that the atomic bomb was not the result of decades of sophisticated nuclear physics research or the dividend of a two-billion-dollar Manhattan Project investment to rapidly develop an atomic weapon in a race to beat the Axis powers’ nuclear programs before they themselves developed such existential weapons.” (08/25/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/25/were-the-bombs-of-august-1945-demonic/
- Do Humanoid Robots Make Sense?
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman“Musk is building them. The Chinese are building and selling them. Why? The first answer that occurred to me is that if we end up with robots neither much abler than humans nor much less able we will want the option of employing a mixed workforce, being able to have humans and robots substitute for each other. That is easier if they are about the same size and shape.” (08/24/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/do-humanoid-robots-make-sense
- Rothbard vs. the Conservatives on the American and French Revolutions
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken“Writing in the 1960s, Rothbard was addressing what was then a common claim among conservatives about the revolution: that it was a conservative, restrained, and almost gentlemanly revolution that sought only to preserve and restore what had already been established. … Rothbard understood that this characterization of the revolution served a modern-day political purpose: to manufacture support for the status quo and to deny any possible moral legitimacy to any new revolutionary political movements that might arise. … in the conservative schema, the American revolution is to be contrasted with the French Revolution, which is portrayed as a more typical revolution, and an illustration of how revolutions are too dangerous to risk at any time.” (08/24/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/rothbard-vs-conservatives-american-and-french-revolutions
- That Time When “Democratic Socialists” Praised a Communist Dictator
Source: Exiled Policy
by Jason Pye“Illiberalism isn’t limited to the right. As Republicans ramp up their attacks on the DSA—with Trump and other senior Republicans indiscriminately branding democratic socialists and Democrats as communists—the organization practically volunteered to become Exhibit A. On what would have been Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday, the DSA issued a glowing statement describing the late Cuban dictator as a ‘stalwart symbol of anti-imperialist struggle and self-determination.’ Castro led the revolution that overthrew Fulgencio Batista’s brutal and corrupt dictatorship in 1959. He then replaced it with a brutal communist dictatorship of his own: a one-party state that imprisoned political opponents, suppressed independent journalism, prohibited meaningful elections, and punished virtually every form of dissent.” (08/24/26)
https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/that-time-when-democratic-socialists
- How Trump Declared Economic War on His Own People
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen“Having failed at and then become bored with a shooting war, Donald Trump is returning to what really gets him up in the morning: an economic war. An ‘economic D-Day’ for Iran was announced at around the same time as retaliatory trade measures against Canada, a demonstration of the fact that to Trump, there’s no functional difference between tariffs and economic sanctions. I’ve seen some commentators discuss this as a more humanitarian way to handle Iran, as if starving a country’s citizens is somehow preferable to bombing them. But the combination with Canada, as my colleague Bob Kuttner went over yesterday, reveals that this is just bullying with different tools: a spreadsheet instead of a surface-to-air missile. The nagging problem for any would-be emperor short of Nero is that the ungrateful plebes don’t like the world being created.” (08/25/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/08/25/trump-economic-war-iran-war-canada-prices-oil-gasoline/
- Post-9/11 Fear Grew the Surveillance State — Still Growing 25 Years Later
Source: Independent Institute
by Abigail R Hall“Just as every baby boomer knows exactly where they were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, people my age can tell you precisely what they were doing just after 9 a.m. on 9/11. I was in seventh grade music class. In other classrooms, my friends watched people jump out of buildings. My mom picked me up early from school, and I distinctly remember that every television channel had been overtaken by news coverage. I watched the twin towers collapse over and over again for what felt like days. … The U.S. government responded in many ways that either were largely kept secret from the public or are so integrated into daily life that we no longer recognize them as what they are: marked expansions of government that have weakened constraints on government and eroded our liberties.” (08/24/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/08/24/post-9-11-fear-surveillance/
- Not So Obvious, Not So Simple
Source: Liberalism.org
by Matt Zwolinski“Economic planners can’t obtain the knowledge they would need. Prices carry information that no committee could produce. Attempts to impose a uniform design on a spontaneous order tend to destroy the very thing they were trying to improve. But then we turn to politics, and many of us start acting like engineers. Rothbard is the clearest case. About markets he was a thoroughgoing Austrian, insisting that no mind could assemble the knowledge that prices convey. When the subject turned to rights, though, he proceeded almost entirely by deduction, deriving an entire legal and political order from self-ownership and homesteading. … The same thinker who found the market unknowable found the just constitution derivable, as though a system for restraining violence, settling disputes, and determining who owns what were somehow less demanding than the coordination of a grain market, rather than more.” (08/24/26)
- ICE Wants Our Emails
Source: Antiwar.com
by Andrew P Napolitano“When a government agency comes to an internet service provider demanding information about Americans because of what they have said on social media, the provider should discard the demand, close the door or hang up the phone. The government is not entitled to rummage through the political opinions, associations, criticisms and angry rhetoric of anyone merely because a government official finds those opinions offensive, threatening to an agency’s reputation or inconvenient to its mission. Recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dramatically expanded its monitoring of social media platforms and has issued administrative subpoenas seeking information identifying users whose posts have criticized ICE. The reported investigations have included Americans and aliens who have not been charged with crimes.” (08/24/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2026/08/23/ice-wants-our-emails
- One Bad Week
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul“It took around two hundred years for US government debt to reach one trillion dollars. By contrast, in less than half a year a trillion was added to bring the debt total to the 40 trillion dollars it reached last week. According to the Peterson Foundation, US government debt is on a path to reach 50 trillion dollars within the next six years. Despite promising to reduce government spending in all three of his presidential campaigns, President Trump, with the assistance of congressional Republicans and Democrats, has continued to grow the government debt.” (08/24/26)
- Libertarianism Against Cultural Conservatism: A Refresher
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan“Alas, thoughtful apostasy is vanishingly rare. Not only do most humans dogmatically stick to whatever Big Picture views they embraced when they were 15-25 years old. A large majority of humans who do apostatize do so negligently. Instead of pinpointing subtle inconsistencies in their initial view, they emote. If they even bother to explain their prior intellectual errors, they attack a straw man version of what they used to think, using arguments that they previously would have dismissed as unfair and obtuse. … In recent years, I’ve had the same experience with libertarians becoming culturally conservative. While immigration is almost always the wedge issue, once libertarians turn against immigration, they commonly move on to a bunch of other culturally conservative views. And once again, the more I listen to them, the more I wonder why they changed their minds.” (08/24/26)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/libertarianism-against-cultural-conservatism
- One in Five Americans Still Need Government Permission To Work
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“Last week, an article in Governing noted that despite years of reform efforts, roughly one in five jobs in the United States requires government permission in the form of occupational licensing. In a world that is more potentially mobile and flexible than ever, licensing requirements can keep people fixed in place or pose high barriers to entering new trades and professions. The Archbridge Institute’s 2026 State Occupational Licensing Index reveals which states are most burdensome, and which make it relatively easy to earn a living.” (08/24/26)
https://reason.com/2026/08/24/1-in-5-americans-still-need-government-permission-to-work/
- How Would a Jason Arday Scandal Play Out Here?
Source: Town Hall
by Stephen L Miller“Jason Arday was an academic wunderkind and British media darling. When he was hired at Cambridge University in March 2023 as the youngest (and black) professor of Sociology of Education, it was the height of global wokeness. He was greeted with adoring media segment after segment in British media, and even Good Morning America did a profile. Arday’s personal life story of struggles and overcoming them was almost too good, because for the most part, it was. … Cambridge University opened an investigation on August 5 into Arday, after a thorough article examining Arday was published at The Guardian. On August 14, Arday was found dead at his residence and is believed to be a suicide, pending an ongoing investigation.” (08/24/26)
- This Michigan city threatened critics over “cyberbullying.” Now it’s hiding the evidence.
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Carrie Robison“When government officials threaten to sue and prosecute their constituents over speech, the public should get to see the evidence. Earlier this year, the City of Manton, Michigan, passed a vague resolution condemning what it alleged was ‘a deliberate, ongoing, and escalating campaign of cyberbullying, online harassment, and personal attacks directed at City Commissioners.’ Those so-called attacks included social media posts that allegedly contained ‘deliberate falsehoods’ or threats, or targeted commissioners in ‘an offensive personal manner.’ … It further stated the commission may direct the city attorney to explore legal remedies, including cease-and-desist letters, referring individuals to the county prosecutor for investigation, or bringing civil lawsuits. What were the social media posts that led commissioners to pass the resolution? We don’t know, because the city refuses to say, even after FIRE filed a public records request.” (08/24/26)
- The Nazi Had a Point
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders“An important thinker was right about the friend-enemy distinction. A liberalism that can survive the twenty-first century must integrate some of his insights.” (08/24/26)
- A Teachers’ Union Hits the Wrong Target
Source: American Greatness
by Stephen Soukup“The California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) is the largest teachers-only public pension system in the country, with more than $400 billion in assets under management. As of December 31, 2024, CalSTRS directly held three-quarters of a million shares of Target Corporation, worth more than $100 million. If one were to add in the Target holdings of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (the second and third-largest teachers-only plans in the country, respectively), then the total value of shares owned would jump by another $60-plus million. Add in the remaining state teacher retirement systems, plus the city systems of Chicago, Denver, Kansas City (Missouri), New York City, St. Louis, and St. Paul, and the total value of Target shares directly held by teacher pensions is well into the multiple hundreds of millions, at the very least.” (08/24/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/24/a-teachers-union-hits-the-wrong-target/
- Vice Cannot Build Virtue
Source: The Dispatch
by Nathan Beacom“Are there two different moralities for public and private life? For centuries, the mainstream answer in the Western tradition was no. For Aristotle, the Stoics, Cicero, Boethius, and the Scholastics, it was natural to think that those who held authority in a political community should have exceptional virtue. To be virtuous meant not just achieving good outcomes, but achieving them in the right way and for the right reasons. But later, a different answer emerged from the pen of Niccolò Machiavelli. The Italian diplomat reinvented virtue, not as a nobility of soul expressed in justice, prudence, and self-control, but as the ability to win, hold, and exercise power. To do this well, he wrote, the leader must have a flexible disposition and be willing to do evil in service of the state.” (08/24/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/machiavelli-aristotle-virtue-vice-republic/
- “This is My Place of Business”: How Cakes and Coffee Continue to be Groundzero in an Age of Rage
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley“There is a crushing irony for some who supported efforts to force businesses to prepare products from cakes to websites despite religious and political objections. In these cases, the owners were refusing to offer the same services (not expressive products) that they offer other customers. ‘This is my place of business.’ Those words from Jim Sheehan, owner of the Wydaho Roasters coffee shop in Driggs, Idaho, have sparked the latest controversy over the right of businesses to refuse service on the basis of religious or political views. Sheehan has drawn national attention after throwing out a group of pro-life teenagers, calling them the equivalent of a Ku Klux Klan meeting in his shop. Sheehan clearly caters to those who want their lattes with an added shot of rage. However, this and a number of other cases have exposed the hypocrisy of many regarding the service businesses must provide customers with opposing views.” (08/24/26)
- Heading toward the Cliff
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“The American people are complaining about affordability. The prices of groceries, automobiles, movies, clothes, gasoline, rent, mortgage payments, and just about everything else are soaring. Many Americans are having a very difficult time making ends meet. So what are they doing? They are calling on their federal officials to do something to solve the problem. In the process, though, Americans decline to confront an important point: the affordability problem is rooted in the systems that the American people have bought into existence and to which they remain irrevocably committed. The affordability problem means that people don’t have enough money to pay for things they wish to buy. Their money just doesn’t go as far as it used to go. There are various reasons for this phenomenon.” (08/24/26)
- It’s Obnoxious For Westerners To Criticize The Targets Of The Western Empire
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“I still find myself fuming at the way ostensibly well-informed individuals can stand right in the heart of the empire denouncing its targets, as we saw in the open letter that a group of left-wing western individuals addressed ‘to Iran’s political prisoners’ framing Iran as a ‘source of oppression’ equal to the US and its allies. It’s crazy this even needs to be said, but if you are a westerner your ONLY job is to oppose the abuses of the western empire. Not Iran. Not China. Not Russia, Cuba or North Korea. If you live in the US or one of its allied nations, then you live under the single most tyrannical and murderous power structure on earth, and that’s where your focus belongs.” [editor’s note: She seems to be admitting that those other regimes DO commit abuses. That’s progress, I guess. And my job is whatever I damn well decide it is – TLK] (08/24/26)
- My Ideal College
Source: ProSocial Libertarians
by Andrew Jason Cohen“In K-12 education, students are—and perhaps should be—only beginning to think seriously. Especially in earlier years, they do not have enough knowledge or experience to know what they are really interested in. Hence, teachers must just encourage them to explore what they are curious about. By the time they reach college, though, students should have at least some sense of what they are curious about. I don’t think most college students today do (I don’t think they have for the last several decades—that is, I don’t think it was true in CBUs or ETCUs and I doubt it was true in GMUs). If students are encouraged to let their curiosity wander in K-12, this would likely change. Still, I will say something about what to do if they do not come to college with some idea about what they want to study.” (08/24/26)
https://prosociallibertarians.substack.com/p/my-ideal-college
- Robert Nisbet’s Neglected Insights
Source: Law & Liberty
by Luke C Sheahan“Robert Alexander Nisbet first made a splash in academia—and the conservative intellectual movement such as it was—in 1953 with the publication of his first and most famous book, The Quest for Community. Much of what he has to say there and in the rest of his oeuvre proved to be prescient in various ways. Nisbet predicted the rise of loneliness and the decline of the family, the growth of the bureaucracy at the expense of civil society, and the use of the language of democracy and equality to aggrandize the intrusions of political power.” (08/24/26)
- What Comes After Mistrust? Liberalism Needs a Theory of Repair
Source: Liberal Currents
by Pamilerin Samuel“For a long time, the liberal response to institutional mistrust was a mix of condescension and bafflement. If the public did not trust the experts, the assumption was that people were either misinformed or manipulated by bad actors. We lived through a decade of trying to fact-check our way out of a legitimacy crisis. But the tone has started to shift. Across public health agencies, local police departments, housing authorities, and financial institutions, people have watched institutions fail visibly and repeatedly, often without meaningful accountability afterward. In that context, skepticism is not necessarily irrational. It can be a reasonable response to systems that appear distant, unresponsive, or insulated from the consequences of their own mistakes.” (08/24/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/what-comes-after-mistrust-liberalism-needs-a-theory-of-repair/
- The Nixon Shock 55 Years Later: Three Impossible Promises
Source: The Daily Economy
by Jeffery L Degner“Nixon promised jobs, stable prices, and protection for the dollar. His ‘fixes’ helped usher in a new era of inflation, debt, and monetary instability.” (08/24/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-nixon-shock-55-years-later-three-impossible-promises/
- Your guacamole may be helping Mexican cartels while US farmers pay the price
Source: Fox News
by Jayme Franklin“I was born and raised in California, where avocados weren’t just another item on the grocery list, they were a staple of my everyday diet. Today, not much has changed. My family loves avocados, my daughter asks for them constantly, and as someone who loves to cook, I incorporate them into just about every recipe I can. But as a mom who believes deeply in the Make America Healthy Again movement, I’ve started thinking differently about the food I put on my family’s table. MAHA has encouraged millions of Americans to look more closely at ingredient labels, additives and how our food is produced. But I believe the conversation should go one step further: Where does our food come from? Who grows it? Are our agricultural supply chains safe and transparent? And are our purchases supporting American farmers?” (08/24/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/guacamole-helping-mexican-cartels-us-farmers-pay-price
- Central Banking: The Scourge of Civilization
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith“Apple builds and sells iPhones. I happen to own one of the older models, for the same reason I own a last-legs older model car. What if Apple could skip the build part and sell only the phone? The money saved would be an enormous boost to its bottom line. And if Apple passed the savings onto customers I could conceivably afford to upgrade. Where would the phones come from? From a bookkeeping entry, of course. Unfortunately, Apple’s customers are very demanding and want the real things, so the build operations will have to stay. Perhaps their executives looked upon another business and envied their ability to sell loans without drawing down their savings. Customer with good credit wants a loan? Create the amount with a few taps on a keyboard and send him on his way.” (08/24/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/central-banking-scourge-civilization
- New Student-Visa Requirements Earn an “F” in Economics
Source: Independent Institute
by Abigail R Hall & Michael Coon“Excitement abounds as college students prepare to return to campus. Some students will begin their college experience. Others will begin the countdown to graduation. But for international students, fall is likely to bring significant anxiety. On Sept. 15, new rules for student visas will place them in a bind, harm universities and impose high costs on one of the country’s strongest service exports: education.” (08/24/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/08/21/new-student-visa-requirements-earn-an-f-in-economics/
- Presidential Entitlement and the 1998 Bombing of Sudan
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Jim Bovard“Last week was the 28th anniversary of the U.S. government’s bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. Scott Horton, director of the Libertarian Institute, observed last week that that wanton assault by the Clinton administration ‘helped make a folk hero out of bin Laden, drove up recruitment for Al Qaeda and made it more difficult for the Taliban to give him up.’ Operation Infinite Reach was a farce of the first order—and may have helped pave the way to the September 11 attacks. That carnage resulted in a federal court ruling that practically gave presidents a license to kill any time that they claimed to have good intentions.” (08/24/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/presidential-entitlement-and-the-1998-bombing-of-sudan/
- Trump’s Third-Worldism
Source: Unpopular Front
by John Ganz“Last week, Trump announced that the U.S. will, for 90 days, admit up to 300,000 metric tons of ground-beef product without the normal out-of-quota tariff, and that he has obtained a ‘commitment’ that the beef will be sold 25% below current market prices. This comes on top of February’s much smaller measure allocating an extra 80,000 metric tons of tariff-free lean beef specifically to Argentina. … My immediate reaction to this was, ‘That sounds like some Third World shit.’ A little research would bear this intuition out: this is something like a practice of developing nations. For example, Nigeria during the oil boom of the 1970s.” (08/24/26)
- Quantum Vibe, 08/24/26
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott BieserCartoon. (08/24/26)
- The US Has Lost Trust in the Middle East; Rebuilding It Won’t Be Quick or Easy
Source: Common Dreams
by James Zogby“While the US has a long history of signing treaties, making commitments, and then walking away from them (ask Native American tribes about this), this century’s record of American policy in the Middle East is something quite extraordinary. Dramatic policy shifts, broken treaties, promises made and forgotten, foolish wars fought without attention paid to the mess left for others, and the shattering of international law and conventions—all of these have done substantial damage to the region and to the trust that others have in the US. It’s convenient for Republicans and Democrats to point the finger at the ‘other side’ for America’s loss of standing and support in the world. In reality, there’s plenty of blame to be shared by all of this century’s administrations.” (08/24/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/us-lost-trust-middle-east
- Pitch for defense treaty and moving US military to Israel is insane
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jennifer Kavanagh“On August 18, Israel bombed a non-operational Syrian air base, reportedly to derail Turkish plans to deploy military forces to the installation. The move drew swift condemnation from the United States, which did not receive prior notification despite its growing support for Syria, its alliance with Turkey, and the presence of thousands of U.S. military personnel based nearby, in Jordan and other parts of the region. Is this the behavior of a ‘model ally?’ The Jewish Institute for National Security of America seems to think so. The group, which promotes ‘strategic cooperation’ between the United States and Israel, tries to defend this position in its new report, ‘Shifting the Center of Gravity: Transforming the U.S.-Israel Security Partnership.’ It also lays out an ambitious set of proposals JINSA hopes will be part of a renewed 10-year U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding (the current one expires in 2028).” (08/24/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-israel-integration-mou/
- Europe Built a Single Market—Now It’s Packaging It Away
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes“Starting in 1993, a small business owner in any EU member state could sell to another member state without having to face new bureaucratic or financial barriers at every border. The potential size of a new business was no longer determined by the size of the country where it was based. Today, the European Commission estimates that the Single Market has increased the European Union’s GDP by 3–4% and created 3.6 million jobs since its creation. A study by Bertelsmann Stiftung estimated that integration increases European citizens’ incomes by an average of about €840 ($974) per person per year. Yet the benefits created by this integration, and the freedom that made these benefits possible, began to come under threat on August 12, 2026, quietly and through an apparently harmless packaging regulation.” (08/24/26)
https://fee.org/articles/europe-built-a-single-market-now-its-packaging-it-away/
- Silencing the Watchdog: Why the Pentagon’s Purge of Military Journalists Threatens Free Speech
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey“As the Department of Defense fires top editors and reporters at Stars & Stripes, the clash over editorial independence exposes the dangerous urge to replace oversight with state propaganda.” (08/24/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/silencing-the-watchdog-why-the-pentagons
- Gorsuch’s Con-jority Opinion in Slaughter
Source: Law & Liberty
by Andy Smarick“Gorsuch’s concurrence in Trump v. Slaughter may hold the key to the future of separation of powers jurisprudence.” (08/24/26)
https://lawliberty.org/gorsuchs-con-jority-opinion-in-slaughter/
- The Kyle Anzalone Show, 08/24/26
Source: Libertarian Institute
“DESTROYING The Washington Post’s War Propaganda.” (08/24/26)
- Fountainhead Forum, episode 479
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Don Kissick on running for Governor of Ohio and silly lawsuits over trademarks.” (08/24/26)
- Freedom Works with Paul Molloy, 08/24/26
Source: Freedom Works
“Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center ‘National Debt Hits $40 Trillion.'” (08/24/26)
https://internetradiopros.com/freedomworks/?name=2026-08-25_zfw0081212026.mp3
- Reason Roundtable, 08/24/26
Source: Reason
“How Did America Get $40 Trillion in Debt?” (08/24/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/08/24/how-did-america-get-40-trillion-in-debt/
- Rising, 08/24/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on the sudden rise of opposition to data center construction on both the left and right.” (08/24/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 08/24/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“As Americans Suffer, Trump Picks A Senseless Fight With Canada.” (08/24/26)
- Trump’s Iran War: America’s Biggest Foreign Policy Failure?
Source: The Realist Review
“TRR editor James W. Carden talks with the scholar Lasha Kasradze.” (08/24/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/podcast-trumps-iran-war-americas
- The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 08/24/26
Source: The Dispatch
“‘The One True Libertarian’ | Interview: Jesse Walker.” (08/24/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/the-one-true-libertarian-interview-jesse-walker/
- EconTalk, 08/24/26
Source: EconTalk
“Are We Alone? Cosmic Loneliness and the Longing to Believe (with Adam Kirsch).” (08/24/26)
https://www.econtalk.org/are-we-alone-cosmic-loneliness-and-the-longing-to-believe-with-adam-kirsch/
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 08/24/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump’s Fury over Natalie Harp Mess Worsens as Leaks Grow More Damning.” (08/24/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/214616/trump-fury-natalie-harp-mess-worsens-leaks-grow-damning
- Charles Goyette on The Kyle Anzalone Show
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Was Donald Trump Mousetrapped By Netanyahu?” (08/24/26)
- Bulwark Takes, 08/23/26
Source: The Bulwark
“Trump Blows Up His Own Trade Deal With Canada.” (08/23/26)
- Free Talk Live, 08/23/26
Source: Free Talk Live
“Women now have more tattoos than men :: Bonnie and Mark removing tattoos :: Sarah has a younger sister who is NOT a communist :: Bonnie’s experience contacting her dead grandpa :: Can a ghost haunt a car?” (08/23/26)
- Unattended Baggage, episode 353
Source: Unattended Baggage
“We’ve got nothing in common.” (08/22/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-353-weve-got-nothing-in-common
- Pink Flame of Liberty, 08/22/26
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Let’s watch the LNC Meeting with PRESHOW review of Moellman Opinion.” (08/22/26)
- Rising, 08/21/26
Source: The Hill
“Jill Biden responds to theory Joe Biden was drugged before debate.” (08/21/26)
- Nolan Denaro on The Kyle Anzalone Show
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Trump Must Make a Bad Deal to End the War, Will His Ego Get in the Way?” (08/21/26)
- Freakonomics Radio, episode 542
Source: Freakonomics
“Is a Museum Just a Trophy Case?” (08/21/26)
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-a-museum-just-a-trophy-case-update/
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 08/21/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump’s Rage Darkens as MTG Drops Midterm Bombshell: GOP Is Toast.” (08/21/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/214581/trump-rage-darkens-mtg-drops-midterm-bombshell-gop-toast
- The Tom Woods Show, episode 2789
Source: The Tom Woods Show
“Why the Campaign Against JD Vance?” (08/21/26)
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2789-why-the-campaign-against-jd-vance/